


The Night Stalker (Under Re-Write)

by discodeaky65



Category: Midsomer Murders - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Drama, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Violence, Slow Burn, Tags Are Fun, Tags May Change, Verbal Abuse, Violence, barnaby is like troy's father figure, based on crime documentaries, i need to get a life, literally Midsomer Murders takes a dark twist, troy is just really underrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discodeaky65/pseuds/discodeaky65
Summary: When a murder occurs in Midsomer,  Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy usually expect to come across a background of secrets and scandalous affairs that are the cherry on top; this time they're hit with a series of murders of random women without a link or relation to guide them only a murderer with no self-control.   At the same time, Troy meets a friend of Cully's and is convinced she is playing some part with her "strange and anxious behaviour",  only to find he couldn't have been more wrong.
Relationships: Cully Barnaby/Simon Dixon, Joyce Barnaby/Tom Barnaby, gavin troy/original female character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	The Night Stalker (Under Re-Write)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stuck in a rut binging Midsomer Murders and Sky Crime since the beginning of Lockdown, so I guess my mind was like 'what if you put both together?' 
> 
> And I love Detective Sergeant Troy so much, why isn't there any stories with him (Jones and Scott too!) and an OC/Reader, or a relationship that could possibly develop his character. He's married in the novels and even though Troy was a little insufferable in the books, I feel like his personal family just rounded his character development really well.

Midsomer Murders

  
  


* * *

  
  


“The Night Stalker”

Introduction 

  
  


* * *

Causton, Midsomer

  
  


Summer, 1996

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy believed it was the beginning of a rubbish week. He hadn't been in bed until 4:00 because Barnaby had phoned him suddenly to take a route around Causton to see if they could find anyone suspicious, but that didn’t include the time he spent coming down from his adrenaline high after chasing a suspicious looking man who he never caught in the end, which meant a book was held in his hands until at least 5:00. So, that didn’t leave him much time for rest, and if he wanted to get to work on time he needed to be out of his flat in half an hour.

Pulling random items out of his dresser, he threw on the first items that match, jumping--and nearly falling over--to pull his trousers over his legs. He pats his face lightly in the bathroom mirror, a meagre attempt to wake himself up, though cold water seems to help some. He tries to adjust his hair in a rush, but becomes increasingly frustrated with each passing second and in the end settling with his hair in a complete state of what looked like two separate curtains hanging over his forehead.

“Bloody-”, he swears, pursing his lips in one last attempt to tame a strand that keeps falling in front of his eye. Giving up, he throws his hands in the air and storms out of the bathroom.

He checks his watch again, cursing under his breath as he searches for his laptop bag. Where is it? He looks under his bed, on the floor, in his wardrobe, to no avail. Walking into the living room, he spots it sitting on the sofa the whole time. With an irritated scoff, he snatches it up, rushing out of his flat and nearly sprinting to work.

Eventually getting to work five minutes late, he was met with an amused handful of Constables who snarkily sniggered on the out of character tardiness of the Chief Inspector’s sidekick. 

Troy had his nose up at the people passing by him as he stalked through towards the lab where George Bullard was waiting for him, his Chief Inspector, Tom Barnaby was nowhere in sight.

“Morning Gavin,” said Bullard standing beside a table drowned in white sheets, a few stained with flakes of dry blood. The Medical examiner had frowned, gesturing with a gloved hand for the Detective Sergeant to stand at his side. “DNA says, it’s Anabelle Green, eighteen years of age.” Troy cringes as he's met with the lifeless and beaten face of a woman once youthful. Faded freckles mixed with glitters of dried blood and bruises that resembled the petals of roses. Bullard quickly threw the sheet back over before Troy had any more time to empathise and think of his anger that such a young woman was given such an ending.

“She’s been beaten with a blunt object, but the body’s in the stages of decomposition meaning that there are some aspects that I can’t get tested.” Troy nods, pulling his black leather notepad from the depths of his pocket and looking at Bullard before scribbling down the details. “She was found up the back of Marsh Woods, I’d say about ten miles from where she was last seen. But by the state that she arrived in, this wasn’t a premeditated addict, it was a very quick, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, sexually powered attack.”

Troy froze, “sexually powered attack?”

Bullard nodded. “She was beaten, but I doubt she was killed first, then the assailant carried out a very brutal sexual attack. When I investigated the scene, I saw an obvious state of struggle, meaning she was alive when they left her, but the attack left her with a broken spine and the rest, she clearly died. But for certain, the head injury was the earliest. My guess would be the attack might’ve been of impulse, but it lasted for a duration of two to two and a half hours.” 

Writing everything down caused a great difficulty, Troy felt uneasy. Murders were almost daily in Midsomer, but there had never been a sexually motivated attack, the people were usually pompous and ignorant, married and having an affair or involved in some sort of local scandal, but never this; never ever something like this. The unease Troy felt, was indescribable, what if it wasn’t a one time thing? What if there were going to be more going through the same fate before Barnaby and he caught the Killer? Cully and Joyce, what if something happened to them? Troy wouldn’t be able to face another day if his Superior lost a Wife or Daughter because he wasn’t a good enough Detective Sergeant. 

Gavin Troy had never been so thankful to have no family, no Wife, no Children. He didn’t have the emotional anchor keeping him down.

“What about dates, Sir?”

Bullard shrugged, gloved hand travelling under the sheet as he examined the corpse while Troy looked on. “I suggest, by the looks of it, five or six weeks ago. But again, it’s not definite, the body is simply not fresh enough to make the most accurate assumption, I’m merely putting it to experience and using the evidence of what I have already.” He sighed as he pulled the sheet back over and strolled towards Troy. 

They stood in silence for a long moment before Bullard furrowed his brows and smiled at Troy with amusement. “I’m going to guess Tom has you doing the work today Gavin?”

* * *

Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby appeared around midday, in top spirits Troy noted. The Detective Sergeant had waited and waited, releasing a breath he never thought he was holding when Barnaby finally sat himself down in his chair. 

“I’ve been trying to get you all morning, Sir,” said Troy neutrally without either malice or annoyance in his voice. “Have you at least been to see Bullard?”

“Why would I do that, Troy?”

Troy rolled his eyes, handing over a file to his superior who cast a warning glare towards the younger man.  Tired, and embarrassed Troy rested his head on the table, his ear pressed against the hollow, airy wood of the table. The tall chair he was sitting on was the same material, and there wasn’t a cushion, so he shuffled around every few seconds in a desperate attempt to find a comfortable position that soon proved impossible. Everything was muffled against his ear; the sounds of punching irresolute words into computer keypads, sipping coffees. Troy was exhausted, and lying his head on the table--although scratchy against his soft skin--made his eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones as his eyes fell, closed as his lips parted, shallow breaths fanning over his book so the dog-eared pages skimmed and flitted upon the next.

He wasn’t usually the type to fall asleep in work; in fact, he had become reliant on coffees saturated with grainy sugar to keep himself from doing just that. But something about the hollow, dreamy reverberation of flipped pages and tapping pencils had him softly snoring, his hair fanned over the table, where small dribbles of drool pooled at the corner of Troy’s mouth. The pen he was holding loosely between his fingers soon fell against the tabletop as his head fell to one side, nuzzling into the pad of his powder grey suit jacket which had sleeves that were much too short; his wrists were covered in goosebumps.

Barnaby sat at his desk diagonally across but next to Troy’s watching him in slight interest. Troy was a sort of enigma at Causton CID; nobody knew much about him, but they were endlessly fascinated by the shrouded nebula of the unknown that seemed to hover in his mind. Nobody had seen him speak to anybody but Barnaby, whenever he did seem to interact, Troy was what most would describe as ‘up his own arse,’ talking down to every constable that spoke in what was meant to be polite humour that Troy would mistake as laughing at him, he would put them into their place, obnoxiously talking and commanding them to get lost and the majority of the snooping Officers dropping files in or giving resourceful information about cases had to attend to their social lives while sniggering at the latest victim of Gavin Troy’s over-sensitive masculinity. 

If Gavin Troy wasn’t being a pain in the arse, he was what the Constables would take as ‘absent minded’. It was like he had a hobby in staring into space or zoning out sparking interest as everyone wonders what could possibly be on Troy’s mind after he is spotted daydreaming for the hundredth time in an hour. 

They even thought he had that look of a stoner when he was zoned out. His blue eyes that were usually bright and inquisitive would grow hooded as he stared into nothingness while Barnaby would be seen debating whether to throw something at him to make the time pass or bark at him for the satisfaction of seeing the blood disappear from his face.

Troy had that anxiety that was comical around the office. Many wondered if that was what opted him to be intolerable when confronted. He seemed to regard everyone as a danger to his inner tranquility. 

* * *

Barnaby arrived at a small and humble cottage scattered at the desolate backend of Causton. Barnaby wasn’t necessarily surprised, though he found the expensive looking home rather unexpected, seeing as the supposed daughter was said to be  _ an escort.  _ It piked Barnaby’s interest, an expensive garden that looked to have had time and certainly money spent on it. It made him desperate to nose around, did Anabelle’s parents have any clue of her life? An eighteen year old Girl selling her body, Barnaby frowned, any good parent would have even a brief idea, not the right conclusion, but even just a couple of questions. 

Just another few questions for him to throw at them after telling them that their daughter was murdered. It was one of the few things Barnaby hated about his job, one of the few times he wished he’d dragged Troy with him in order to be the good guy while Troy wasn’t all too bothered about being the insensitive one. Barnaby scoffed, some Detective Sergeant he was, he thought in annoyance. But then he supposed it was a better thing that he, a fellow parent of a grown up daughter were to break the news, he knew how he would’ve liked to hear such a statement meanwhile Troy usually dropped a statement as though he were a bull in a china shop. 

“Mr and Mrs Green.”

His knuckles crackled at the force that he knocked on the Greens’ door. His free hand subconsciously found his ID and he readily flipped it open with his right thumb at the moment that the front door opened revealing a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties if Barnaby was to judge by appearances. She smiled as she nodded to him, waving for him to step inside. 

“I’m Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby.” 

Suddenly what Barnaby expected to be Anabelle’s Father appeared in the doorway, face stony as his eyes met with Barnaby’s. “If you’re inquiring about Anabelle, you’re not going to get a thing out of us.” He stomps off, angrily like a bear as his feet echoed on the kitchen tile. 

Barnaby smiled tightly, he would’ve taken it as a que that his input wasn’t welcome, but Mrs Green wrapped a dainty hand around his bicep. “Is everything alright, Detective?” She was clearly eager. Barnaby guaranteed the different approaches from the parents certainly created storms.

Barnaby shook his head, “I am here about your daughter Anabelle. But I do think your husband should be present.” 

He attempted to be non-negotiable, but Mrs Green had already disappeared in a hunt for her husband. With him in tow, Barnaby was led to sit with them in the living room. He gulped as he read over the coroners notes, terrified that he would read over those notes and he would read a different name, a different spelling- a different Anabelle altogether. But he hoped it would be. 

They weren’t the usual people of Midsomer. They simply seemed like a happily married couple like he and Joyce instead of the usually scandalous and do-no-wrongs. They seemed like the average couple who didn’t seem to think too much of themselves. A normal husband and Wife who were genuinely in-love. 

“Well Detective, what are you here for?”

Mr Green stood, pacing around the room while Barnaby set out his notes on the glass coffee table. In his mind, he was tripping over his words, his own sadness and empathy never ending as he locked eyes with a young looking mother who seemed eager to believe her teenage runaway would be in the car, close to him. 

“There is no easy way to say this, but I want to apologise in advance. A body was found two days ago, we have run a DNA test thoroughly and I’m sorry to tell you, that we believe the body is of your daughter Anabelle.”

A shrill gasp echoed through the room. Barnaby watched a Mother’s heartbreak unwind before his eyes. Mrs Green clasped a hand over her mouth as her eyes watered to the brink. “Please tell me you’re mistaken, please Inspector, tell me it’s not true.”

“I’m sorry Mrs Green, but she has been identified by advanced DNA testing, though we will need one of you to come down with me to the coroners office and identify her and confirm she is.” 

“I’ll do that,” Mr Green simply said, turning to his Wife. “Go upstairs, I’m going to have a word with Mr Barnaby and if you’re alright, you come along.” 

Wordlessly, Mrs Green is gone, sobs echoing but growing faint as she stumbled upstairs. 

“I should apologise for my cold-hearted demeanour.” Barnaby frowned at the Father’s words. “Anabelle, she has always been a good girl, that was until she hit secondary school.” A long sigh left his lips as he picked a framed picture of a young girl donned in a school uniform, smiling, innocence and mere happiness were the words that Barnaby would’ve associated the picture with. “Well you know how impressionable Teens are. By the time Ana was fifteen, she had become a huge difficulty to live with, we worried every time she did another disappearing act after school. She was like that, just like, she was a thief, no question.” 

Barnaby raised an eyebrow, “she stole from you.”

A nod. “She did. Jewellery, money, the telltale things someone steals for a fix. It dawned on us, we tried, tried and tried to get her help. But I felt my Wife, well, Barbara wasn’t one for doing the right thing. She babied Anabelle, preventing her from getting help because she hated being cruel. Eventually, she worsened, our savings the lot. I did what I had to, I told her to pack her bags and go. I thought tough love would’ve at least brought her back.”

Barnaby wrote the most informative down before smiling with an empathetic intention towards Mr Green. “Must I assume that you and your Wife knew she was selling herself on the street?”

Another, self-hateful nod. “Of course we did. Barbara wanted to bring her home, I.. I could’ve in all honesty, killed her. The Girl I saw in my Wife’s stomach, the Girl we thought we had raised to the best of our ability, preferred a life of drugs and solicitation. Barbara hated herself, truly hated herself. Anabelle was what you call a rainbow baby.” Mr Green chuckled sadly, “Barbara and I had lost all hope after the third miscarriage, then, Anabelle came along and she brightened our lives.”

From what Barnaby saw, there was a distressed Mother and Father. Grief evident with resentment for their actions. 

Mr Green was composed, Mrs Green was the polar opposite. 

He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of losing an only child, but he couldn’t relate to the couple. Cully had been an unexpected surprise, the definite nail in the coffin for he and Joyce to not want children despite having strong parental traits. Cully wasn’t a handful, but she wasn’t easy, and that was all Joyce’s problem while Barnaby spent day and night climbing up the ladder at the CID, Joyce picked and mixed at small jobs when Cully went to school, but Joyce had been far too sentimental, never wanting to let Cully go in case she suddenly grew twenty years in a moment. 

But he felt for the Mother and Father standing over their daughter. Mr Green emotionless, hand on his Wife’s shoulder while she bent over her daughter, incoherently screaming and sobbing at her daughter’s corpse, like she herself was in a huge deal of pain. 

* * *

Barnaby was getting himself and Troy coffee, a bacon roll for Troy in order to wake him up with something other than investigating. Chatting up the teenager behind the counter who merely stuck her nose out at the sight of him. He expected as such, usually when he came across anyone wearing a suit on a slow day in Causton, he would’ve held slight disdain, expecting another rich pompous nobody with the mannerisms of a child with behavioural issues. But he eventually managed to at least make the teen smile, flashing a charming but fatherly smile towards her as she hands him his order. 

He didn’t expect Troy to still be fast asleep, yet there he was awkwardly pressed against his desk snoring lightly. He poked Troy’s head with the pen that had fallen from his grasp. Troy groaned softly, adjusting his position so his head moved away from the strange sharpness that pierced his scalp. “Wake up Troy. Ten murders have occurred while you’ve napped for Midsomer.” He whispered into his ear.

Troy turned his head to the opposite side, so he faced where the window that revealed the other staff were sitting, watching the interaction curiously, like a few other surrounding desks were, halting their procrastinated studies to try and decode the Causton mystery that was Gavin Troy. 

Barnaby moved to the other side of the table and pinched Troy’s nose, squatting down as Troy’s eyes snapped open, his pupils dilating and constricting like his stomach was, pumping with anxiety as he sat up quickly, rubbing his eyes with a ringed pinky finger.

“Sorry sorry sorry!” He whisper-yelled, looking around the exposed Office. Troy sighed in relief when he noticed more and more of their audience returning their attention to their work and social lives, the cracking of the glue along the spines like a depressant to Troy’s sympathetic nervous system. Troy gathered his open files, shoving his pen on the last page he was on before he closed it carefully, pushing it into his bag behind portfolios of various lab reports and unmarked documents. 

“I’ve been so busy with looking over these cases I must’ve fallen asleep…”

“The day in a life, Troy.” Barnaby just stacked the rest of Troy’s papers strewn about the table and handed them to him without a word. Troy straightened his stack of papers and clasped them together with a metal clip, pushing it into his bag expertly.

The moment Barnaby handed the bacon roll to Troy along with the steaming coffee. Troy sighed in relief, guzzling the coffee as though it had the strongest pain relief inside. He feigned a humorous quip to his Detective Sergeant, but Troy’s visible grogginess told him he wouldn’t have an audience. 

“I visited the family.” 

Troy paused, wiping away excess bread crumbs as he glanced at Barnaby initiating he was listening. “Anabelle had a track record of inconsistency. Home, disappearing for days, home. They’d simply thought it was another one of her disappearances.” He explained while Troy savoured his unofficial breakfast. 

Troy frowned letting Barnaby’s words sink in. “So that really narrows it down, doesn’t it Sir?”

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed it and please leave a comment :) I'd love to know your thoughts (And I'm desperate hehehehe.)


End file.
